Burning
by vodka straight
Summary: Besides, in our buisness, nobody really cares about what happens in people's kitchens in the dark. -Josh crashes down, and Joey catches him.


**AN: I read a piece that was simliar to this one, about this imaginary event, and liked it ver much. It was from Joey's POV, and I wanted to flesh it out in Josh's for my own personal whatever, so here it is.**

**Setting: The night Joey comes back into town to help handle the PR forthe President's MS.**

**JOSH POV**

**BURNING**

I don't know what to say now. And my god it's bad, because why does she have to be here when this is going to happen? I know what's happening, and it almost feels like for a moment I have a choice, like for a moment I can stop it right now, before it starts, because why why why does it have to be this beautiful, half-naked deaf woman with her hair in her one hand and her mouth covered in quiet pity with her other. Why does it have to be here, at four in the morning in my disgusting kitchen with the light hitting her so that she looks like she could be some ancient goddess bathed in blue. And why oh why do I have to want it so badly.

"Josh…" she begins, in her thick, muted speech that ends on a high note tonight like I've never heard it.

"I don't know what to do." I say, not because it's true (though it is) and not because I don't know what to say (though I don't), but because it's the thing you say when you want to cry and be held by someone who doesn't even know why.

My head lolls as though I've just been shot and the rest of me is pinned against the wall. My arm rests against the door frame and tears practically shoot down my face, as though on cue, as though racing. And all of a sudden it's not about what I want, it's about what I'm doing, where I am and who I am. And I can't even think about anything but about how good this feels, better than sex with Joey Lucas a moment ago, better than this pale goddess in her white underwear, better than any apology that old fuck could give anybody and better than any poll we could possibly or impossibly pull in.

And as it keeps getting better it keeps getting worse, my shoulders shake harder and sobs-actual sobs-scream out of my lungs and my chest and my soul, and pain that I didn't even know I had is not so much gone as it is leaving. I try not to think about the fact that once this is over and I clean myself up and start acting like a grown up again, it'll all still be there, as though the release had only been a dream.

Maybe I'm doing this now because I know Joey can't hear how pathetic I sound-- how high and crackling and childish my sobs break into the air, how pathetically I cough and sputter to keep pulling in air as my body crashes down. I hope to myself that I'm not that calculated.

Her arms around my chest just as I might have fallen down. And I'm glad and angry that she feels entitled.

Her head on my bare chest and I'm in love for a few seconds in time when I hate everything.

Her hair smells like my bed sheets and the loudest sob yet is directed into it, and my arm does not move from its comically relaxed position, leaned against the doorframe. Her hand smoothes my hair and she kisses my chest and she tisks softly in a shushing, sweet way.

I don't think about what's going to happen when the sobbing slows down, when, in two hours, I have to get showered and get dressed and go take care of things. I need to go take care of things for the rest of my life, but I try not to think about it because that would ruin the perfect purity of how pathetic this is.

Joey's hands are cold on my back, and I know that she must be cold, standing in my kitchen at four in the morning in nothing but her underwear, but I can't possibly conceive it because I'm so hot. I feel my face is bright red and my body is burning. Her sudden cold hands make me shudder, but she can't tell because I'm already shaking. I hear her soft noises that can't really be called words or even sounds. They are just her, pushing at me to get it together, to stop being such a child and realize that you're a grown up and that everybody lies, and that the sicker you get over it doesn't make you a better person.

She's thinking that she might have expected this from Sam. It would have been okay with Sam, even endearing. His abandonment, it would be fitting and sweet and people would feel bad. Mine. Well, mine is something that hides away because as smart as I am I'm still so stupid, and then later it comes out and makes people uncomfortable.

This is nothing, really, I think. I mean, it's something, but if we handle it right its nothing. And I'm making this terrible mess of myself. And I can just stop, now, Josh, just stop, this is idiotic.

The sobs start to slow down, and Joey's hands are warming up and creating hot friction on my skin. She must think I'm cold, too.

"Josh."

I don't know how she can think that, though; I'm hot, I'm so hot, the air is thick with heat and it's standing in my flesh and I feel like I'm-

"-burning up!"

I'm not completely sure of what she said, but I try to focus my bleary, watery, swollen eyes on her face, and I see that she is frowning deeply. I feel her freezing cold hand against my forehead and I shake and suck in a shuddering breath.

"You're burning up, Josh, you've got a fever." She said, and her voice arched slightly with controlled panic.

I feel suddenly taken off guard. I was sobbing, right here thirty seconds ago and now I'm expected to act like a normal person again? Is that how it works? Suddenly I feel so deeply, devastatingly embarrassed I can barely stand upright.

"No-no." I stutter, sniffling and rubbing the tears off my cheeks with the underside of my wrist. "It's just warm in here."

If I were her, I'd run away.

But she says, and she stares at me for a moment.

"Josh, it's freezing." she says loudly, and despite herself she signs it at the same time, because you can't break people of things, no matter how hard you try or how much things seem different.

And of course, it is freezing. Of course it is. My thermostat sets itself low at night. It always does. What's the matter with me, anyway?

Joey begins herding me toward my bedroom, this tiny woman with her expressive, over-worked, fluttering hands and miming lips-- she's so powerful.

She puts me to bed with those perfect hands and that quiet face, occasionally half-signing words to herself that it seems she forgets to say out loud. She asks me quietly if I'm alright, and she doesn't sign the words.

I laugh, embarrassed again, and nod.

She smiles. "You alright?" she asks, and I nod again, feeling tired already.

She doesn't say anything more, she doesn't do anything else. She doesn't suggest I take some aspirin and she doesn't ask me about why I shattered a few minutes ago, and I'm not sure if it's because she knows or because she doesn't need to know. And for a moment I have a funny thought: I can't imagine that Joey was very good at being a high school girl, despite her prettiness.

She gets up and collects her clothes, stands in the doorway of my room, dressed and holding her gray pumps in one hand. I'm almost asleep, and she smiles sympathetically or maybe sadly. She lets herself out. I will see her tomorrow, wearing a brown pants suit with Kenny at her side and looking beautiful, and her eyes will have no special reflection that wasn't there yesterday or the day before. And neither will mine. We're professionals, and we work hard, and we get things done. Besides, in our business, nobody really cares about what happens in people's kitchens in the dark.

The thought is anything but comforting.

_fin_


End file.
